


steal my blood and steal my heart

by kaibacorp



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Domesticity, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 12:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21458290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibacorp/pseuds/kaibacorp
Summary: in which martin and john are both in love and both equally as stupid.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 6
Kudos: 183





	steal my blood and steal my heart

**Author's Note:**

> title is from bitch by allie x which is a little aggressive for them but i was listening to it on loop while writing it so sue me i guess. im projecting my yearning onto these gay motherfuckers

It wouldn't be too big of an exaggeration to say that the last couple weeks had been the best that John had experienced in a while. 

The locale helped, to be sure. Daisy's safehouse was...small, but it was more than enough room and he supposed that beggars couldn't be choosers, especially under his strange set of circumstances. Sure, the nearest town was a while away and even though he couldn't really eat much in the way of solid food, it was more the principle of the thing, it would have been nice to at least have a grocery store that wasn't a long walk away. The only company besides his...companion...in the safehouse were a couple hundred fluffy, brown cows dotting the hills of Scotland, and John was more than happy with that. He can now safely say that cows are perhaps a little too stupid to have real fears, let alone nightmares. 

His other companion was what really made the whole experience interesting. Martin Blackwood. Ex-archival assistant and current cow enthusiast (they seemed to be a reoccurring theme in these parts) and the only real, human company that John had for miles around. 

He wouldn't have it any other way. 

At first, John worried that the rolling, empty hills of Scotland would remind Martin a little too much of his time spent in the Lonely, a low fog seeming to be a constant fixture. Martin was quick to dissuade these fears, however, muttering something under his breath about even if it was a little reminiscent of that hellscape, it being more like the end of his imprisonment there, having John by his side. This made something within John feel like it was absolutely bursting. He had the impulse, like a few too many times before this, to surge up and kiss Martin, but despite the fact that John knew his refugee partner wouldn't mind this in the slightest, he supressed the urge. 

In the Lonely, before John had laid waste to Peter's consciousness and effectively destroyed him, Martin had said something that played like a broken record in John's mind, day and night. Six words, seven syllables, a single statement that had John's heart spiralling into despair and love at the same time. 

"I really loved you, you know?"

John wasn't even sure if Martin remembered it. He had told John that his memory of being in the Lonely was fuzzy, filled with the same fog that made it so distinctive. Every time he would remember a little more he would tell John, and it made John's lungs wrench. He described hallucinations of John himself and the other archive workers abandoning him because, while the Lonely was supposed to be a solitary place, what else would make you feel more alone than being abandoned by the people you trusted most? Mostly though, Martin said that most of his time by himself was spent as just that. By himself. Plenty of time to overthink every move he had ever made, every relationship that had ever turned sour, everything. Martin's voice often got shaky when he told John these things, and John tried his best to comfort him. 

Emotions, relationships, and what have you were still a foreign idea to John, even when he had been with Georgie he realized that they hadn't been too good together. With Martin, it almost came too easily. It scared John to no end, having the sudden urges to hold and be held, kiss and be kissed. They hadn't really talked about it yet. It was so obvious to both of them that they were just dancing around what they both truly wanted. They seemed to move at a glacial pace, and to John's horrible dismay, Martin still even slept on the horrible coarse sofa in the living room. All they had in the way of blankets were thin, woolen things that did nothing in the way of warming either of them, and despite John's insistence that there was more than enough room to fit them both comfortably in the bed, Martin was nothing less than an annoyingly perfect gentleman, too scared to accidentally overstep any of John's slowly decaying boundaries. 

That was another thing. Martin was nothing less than perfectly respectful and it drove John completely up the wall. Logically, John knew that he didn't mean to, but it felt like Martin was teasing him. Torture was a strong word, but in the state that John was currently in he would use it. John wanted nothing more to cross that line that Martin had created for himself, drag him back over it and kiss the living daylights out of him. He felt guilty, knowing how Martin felt about him and knowing how he felt about Martin and doing nothing about it. 

He knew that logically, he had done it to himself. He had seen Martin for all that time at the Archive and how soft he was, and he was scared for the man. The world of the Archive was certainly not one for the unprepared or too trusting, and after finding out that Martin had only applied to the Archive on a whim (Lying on his application no less!) John felt responsible to make sure he didn't get too far in over his head. He was cruel to Martin for so long, he knew that. He didn't deserve forgiveness, and he certainly didn't deserve the way Martin looked at him. Like he had hung the moon, the stars, everything. Like he was the only person who ever mattered to him. It burned, and John could only pretend he couldn't see. 

John's depressive, self-depricating spiral was interrupted abruptly by none other than Martin Blackwood walking back in the door. He had gone...well John didn't really know. He was in the habit of walking around the nearby fields to clear his head, especially on mornings such as this one, so that must have been it. Martin gave him a smile as he toed his shoes off near the door and moved to the kitchen to make tea. He never asked John if he wanted some, or what kind he would prefer, he just...knew. And suddenly the domesticity of what they were doing here washed over John anew. He sat at his desk, just out of view of the kitchen, so out of desperation and annoyance, he knocked one of the papers onto the floor. 

"Geez, John I know I said we couldn't get a cat 'cause I'm allergic, but that wasn't an inviation to start acting like one." Martin joked. John cursed under his breath. Just like Martin to come in at the worst time. The larger man gingerly placed the cup of tea he had prepared for John in front of him and picked the papers up off the floor. John wanted to cry. 

Setting the papers down again, Martin gave John that...look. John looked right back this time. Martin smiled and brushed a strand of John's (admittedly too long) hair out of his face. "Something wrong? You seem tense." Martin asked, gentle as always. 

John searched Martin's eyes. The larger man was oblivious as always. As hard as John usually tried to mask his emotions, he cursed himself for it now, for not being able to be as open as Martin. So, instead of saying what he wanted to say, instead of launching into a bold declaration of fondness, he simply croaked out: "This." Fuck. 

Martin looked confused. Then, realizing where his hand had been, softly cupping John's jawline, he pulled it back like he had been burned and started sputtering apologies. As hard as John tried to get Martin's attention away from pathetically making an attempt at excuses, Martin seemed to hear none of it. Fed up, he shouted: "Martin!" and the other man looked at him finally. His eyes were misty, like he was barely holding back tears. John wanted to die. 

Martin started again, but this time in more understandable sentences. "Look-I-I'm really sorry about that I overstepped your boundaries and just because we both live here doesn't mean anything and its Fine, I get you're uncomfortable with all this stuff-" John cringed, "and I don't want you to think I'm trying to take advantage of you-" 

John held up his hand. "Martin, stop." he tried, echoing Martin's earlier soft tone. "Let me explain." 

Martin finally, finally went totally quiet with a hiccup. John started again. "These last few weeks have been...stressful...for both of us, understandably, and I, uh..." John trailed off, having lost steam in the moment. Looking into Martin's wet face, he desperately grasped for the words that would salvage the situation. What he decided on were apparently not that. "Do you remember the first time I tried to come for you? Before Peter died? You-You told me you loved me."

Martin's eyes went wide. Wider than John would have thought was possible, but he didn't really have time to dwell on it before Martin started sputtering again. "Oh, John I'm so, so sorry. If you want me to leave I'm sure I can find somewhere else or we could just not talk to each other anymore, pretend like none of this ever happened-" and that was it for John. 

The thought of moving backwards, back to the pointed silence and frankly awkwardly obvious concern instead of this, what they had now, tea and sharing memories and being so horribly, tantalizingly close...John couldn't bear the thought of it. So he acted on every urge that he had supressed over the last two weeks, grabbed martin by the front of his stupidly soft sweater, pulled him down to his level and kissed him with everything he had. 

To say Martin melted into it would be an understatement. There was a moment where John was terrified that the other man had actually fainted, and he probably would have stopped to check if Martin hadn't started kissing him back. The larger man's arms grasped around John's waist and lifted him into the air and, oh, if that wasn't the best thing John had ever felt. They could have kissed for second, minutes, hours, it didn't even matter. All John knew when they pulled back was how perfectly wrecked Martin looked, face still slightly damp and lips gently bruised, and call him a sadist but John thought that it was the best he had ever seen Martin look. John couldn't help it, he started laughing, loud and clear. 

Martin started giggling too, and then, realizing something suddenly, John stopped. He looked Martin directly in the eyes, grabbed his shoulders, and very seriously told him: "You're not fucking allowed to sleep on the sofa anymore." 

And he didn't. After all, the bed was more than big enough for two.


End file.
